


Colour Me Blue

by sargentt



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Basically the AU in which Bluesey lacks the one thing that gives them purpose and humanity, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Development, Domestic Violence, F/M, I'm so sorry, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, at this point i'm not too sure, lots of angst cos I'm an angst whore, there might be a major character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-05 10:24:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5371823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sargentt/pseuds/sargentt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blue has never known love.<br/>Gansey has never known Glendower. </p><p>One thing (or the lack of it) can change everything, for better or for worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Colour Me Blue

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a conversation I had some time back with the incredibly talented [bluesargents](http://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesargents/pseuds/bluesargents)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sending all my love and thanks to my _amazing_ beta, [laurelcastilla](http://laurelcastilla.tumblr.com/)

For the first fifteen years of her life, Blue Sargent was convinced that if she tried hard enough, she could become something more than _useful_ or _necessary._ Closing her eyes and listening to the sound of Maura’s voice as the tarot cards were placed on the table, she would feel the warmth of her mother’s skin beneath her own and pretend that she was _wanted_ and _loved._

She would pretend that Maura didn’t explode whenever Blue accidentally called her Mom and that her brow didn’t cloud over whenever Blue did something, anything, that reminded Maura of Blue’s father. She pretended that the other women in the house didn’t glare whenever she got in their way, the same old look which clearly said: _you don’t belong._ She pretended that Maura wouldn’t have dropped her off at some foster home had it not been for her talent, the only reason Maura let Blue touch her, the only reason Maura let Blue do _anything_ , really.

But when Blue was fifteen, a mother at Nino’s smoothed her own daughter’s tangled knots and laughed at the six year old’s indignant, _No, you’re wrong, I’m right! I win, I win, I win!_ The woman looked at the girl as if she was found, as if her own soul was pulsing behind her daughter’s eyes. That was the moment Blue realised Maura didn’t love her. Maura would never love her.

That night, Blue didn’t come home. She went to the fields of Henrietta, where people sunk down and hell rose up, where the smell of gasoline reeked from that Fourth of July, where liquor was seemingly everywhere, in the bottles, on the grass, in the sky, drenching them, intoxicating them, numbing them. _This is my home, now._ Blue told herself.

When Blue came home the next day, groggy and stupefied, aching everywhere, Maura hadn’t even looked at her. She hadn’t even noticed. She didn’t glance at Blue until the customer rang the doorbell, at which she snapped, _Well, don’t just stand there. Make yourself useful and answer the goddamn door._ Blue had expected as much, and still, the pain seared, branded her with the label _unloved_.

Some teenage girls made a point of wearing their heart on their sleeve. Blue made a point of wearing her heartlessness, stumbling back to the same place, the same rave to find a different boy, a different girl, all under the anthem of _I don’t give a fuck._

She had decided long before that if pain was the price one paid to feel, she wanted nothing to do with it. She would rather be numb than hurt. The next night, anointed in cigarette smoke and cheap liquor and the lips of a stranger, she made her vow: _I will never love._

 

* * *

 

It had started innocuously enough. Coy smiles and nimble fingers, subtle glances and raised eyebrows matching the beat to the song which deafened and shuddered. Its sole purpose was to obliterate words and meaning, speakers blaring as one, all with the message: _Go ahead. No one’s going to see. No one’s going to hear._

Blue had always been good at navigating these raves, where bodies lingered and souls fled and lust burst forth from every seam. Here she was, lying on the grass as he grabbed places which no longer felt intimate and their tongues met in fury, flame upon flame, sparks which wanted so desperately to turn the kindling into ashes and burn everything down. It seemed the boy on top of her knew of the demons lying beside her in the grass as he pushed and pulled and pinched. Her shoulders ached, her lungs were on fire, every inch of her leg was prickling. As they pulled apart to draw ragged breaths, his teeth caught her lip, the taste of blood rusted in her mouth. She took another shot and he pulled her into his lap. Her fingers wandered, sliding down his neck, his back, and then lingered inside his back pocket, groping at crumpled dollar bills. She gripped them tightly. _This is tonight’s reward._

Later, as he fumbled for his car keys in the dark, and she smoothed the bills in the pocket of her jacket, the thought rang through her mind like a rogue bullet: _It’s like I’m a prostitute._ The shame seared into her skin but soon enough the heat of his body turned her thoughts into nothing, reducing them into animals whose furs and fangs were laid bare as clothes were thrown into the backseat.

Tomorrow, she would wake up with a hangover, a wad of fives and ones, hickeys scattered across her shoulder blades and memories which had already begun to fade. Forget it, she would think, looking into the mirror and demanding the shredded tarot cards on her dresser to make her forget. _All of this is just a dream._

How very dangerous, for someone to convince themselves that the life they lived was nothing but a fantasy. But Blue liked dangerous. Dangerous made her feel alive. It made her feel real.

* * *

 

Her shift at Nino’s came too soon. Everything was too loud, too pushy, too entitled. The worn, orange vinyl booths were packed with boys whose white shirts radiated green. These were the boys who scooped up freshly-minted cars by the dozen while bathing in swimming pools of cash, youths who would fade too fast into ranks of jaded men with too little to gain and too much to lose. Not for the first time, Blue wanted nothing more than to dig her fingernails into the white flesh and steal some of their green, to burn the apron and the niceties and the fucking Beastie Boys which blared so loudly it enveloped the little that was left of Blue’s soul and swallowed it whole.

As “Intergalactic” thundered from the speakers for the _fourth_ time that night, Blue’s vision blurred and her head throbbed and the tiles of the floor seemed whirl around and switch places with the ceiling panels above her head. Blue contemplated using the pizza cutter for a purpose that involved far less pizza and far more cutting.

_Be sensible. This is your best paying job._

“You look like shit,” Cialina remarked in a sharp, albeit cheerful manner, wading her way through the sea of blue blood to the front of the restaurant where she began to haphazardly shove a stack of grease-stained menus into the bottom shelf of the hostess stand.

“At least my hair isn’t threatening to float off my head and into the ceiling,” Blue muttered, wheeling around to face her co-worker (whose hair had reached a record-winning frizz level due to a combination of pitiful amounts of stress and static electricity), immediately regretting that decision as her oft-abused brain screamed in protest and suddenly there was not just one Cialina in front of her, but five.

“Jesus Christ, how much did y-” Despite the steadily-worsening pain in her skull, Blue was about to remind Cialina that a broken head did not, in any way, equate to a broken tongue, when the door opened and Blue was quite literally saved by the bell. The sound startled both girls as the customer walked in, effectively cutting off both Cialina’s mouth and oxygen supply. Gasping sharply only to induce a coughing fit, the wide-eyed, wild-haired waitress’ face was rapidly turning the exact same shade as the  red menus she desperately tried to salvage from their peeling, greasy wreckage.

Blinking slowly, Blue could now make out the figure of a boy, gesticulating wildly as he talked on the phone, pausing only for a moment to briefly flash four fingers towards the girls. Realizing with a start that she had spent the last forty minutes simply sitting at the hostess station with her head cradled in her hands, she turned reluctantly to Cialina.

“I can take the table if y-”

“Are you fucking kidding me? God, Blue, exactly how hungover are you, just _look_ at them.”

Blue looked.

Situated in one of the far booths right up against the wall were four boys, although, looking at them now, she wasn’t sure if that was the right word for them. Compared to the rest of Aglionby, their untouchability did not seem to come from the money that they flaunted, but something else entirely. Their eyes were molten with hunger. Their teeth were bared with purpose. The tallest walked headfirst into the cut-glass light, and it swung dangerously, casting green light which danced on the walls, the tiles, the diamond-cut cheekbones. As the others laughed, his mouth curled into a sneer sharp enough to rival his cheekbones. _Fuck off_ , He said. The last one slid into the booth. He swivelled around, blurring before abruptly coming to a stop, sliding back into focus. He was still laughing. Curiously enough, he still seemed… smudgy, for lack of better words, although Blue wasn’t sure whether that was due to her liquor or his face.

They were so alive. The tall one, dark and savage, the smudged one, still reverberating with laughter, the elegant one surrounded by his own less conspicuous, eccentric beauty, and—  _Gansey_.

No. Not him. He was alive, just like the other three, but— _Does he know?_

Their eyes met, briefly. He jerked his head towards the boy sitting next to him, grinning, only to be met with an expression of exaggerated horror. He said something that sounded suspiciously like, _forget it,_ and Blue startled. Unbeknownst to him, Gansey had said just what Blue had needed to hear. _They don’t know, they don’t care, and neither should you._

_Forget it._

 

* * *

 

_She was freezing._

_Perhaps not in the literal sense, but it had been close enough, her fingerless gloves and hole-spotted jumper did little to shield her from the wind which whipped throughout the cemetery._

_Most April nights in Henrietta sang of spring. Even during the night, life could be seen, budding from the trees, scampering on the ground, tickling through the breeze. Most April nights were loud, buzzing with insects old enough to make noise but too young to be a real nuisance. Not tonight. Tonight, it was silent. Tonight, winter had crept back into Henrietta’s bones, refusing to be forgotten._

_Neeve was far from freezing. As Blue’s teeth chattered against her will, she glared at a tombstone, staunchly refusing to meet her aunt’s gaze. Neeve, who hadn’t been in Henrietta for more than a week, belonged more to the town than Blue ever did. Perched on the wall, Neeve surveyed the graveyard as if it were a kingdom and she was its queen. Standing in the grass, Blue shivered. She missed the rave. At least there, she was guaranteed warmth._

_“I know you can’t exactly help it, but try to shiver more quietly. It’s harder to hear when you’re making unnecessary noise.”_

There’s nothing to hear _, Blue wanted to snap back, but she didn’t, because it wasn’t true. It was true that Blue heard nothing. But that was because she was ordinary. That was because she didn’t belong, not here, in the graveyard, on St. Mark’s Eve. Tonight was a night for psychics and witches, not seventeen year olds with twenty-three hair clips fastened into their chin-length hair to give off the pretense of a ponytail._

_Why hadn’t Maura come this year?_

_(“_ You’re not coming?”

“One psychic is more than enough. It’s not like you need me there to make yourself useful.” _)_

_Was she testing Blue? Had she foreseen something about tonight?_

_Yet another gust hit, setting off Blue’s frame as if she were a gong, body vibrating in a desperate effort to maintain warmth. The combined frustration of her blindness (both metaphorically and physically) as well as the increased desire to fidget after standing in the same dew-soaked grass patch for so long stirred up yet even more impatience, and she squinted, trying to read the clock._

_Her hands reached for a rebellious lock of hair and she played with it, resisting the urge to run around the cemetery screaming obscenities or, even better, to sprint back home, underneath her covers, where there was no wind, no waiting, just exhausted limbs and impossible dreams. But that would be admitting to a weakness Blue pretended not to possess._

_“You remind me of her.” Blue’s eyes widened. The women of 300 Fox Way did not go out of their way to talk to Blue unless they wanted her to do something, even if they were visitors. “You have Maura’s guts.” Blue’s jaw clenched. There was a pause, an invitation perhaps. Blue didn’t take it. “And her stubborn grit, it seems,” Neeve mused. She knew that if Maura were here, Blue’s mother would personally escort Neeve and her tactless mouth down to the ninth circle of hell, and Neeve had never taken interest in Blue before, so why—_

_“You should be proud. Your amplification power is a rare and valuable thing.” Ah, so there it was. Blue’s eyes shifted up, cold and wary._

_“What do you want.” Blue wished her own voice didn’t sound so pathetic. Tone flat, it lost whatever impact it might have had by the raspy uncertainty curling around the edges of her words._

_“Only to remind you of your worth.”_

_“Oh,_ pshaw _.” Blue’s mouth began to curl into a sneer._

_Neeve raised an eyebrow, but wisely dropped the subject, deciding that she, for one, would like to avoid clashing with Blue’s mouth, which was widely known for inflicting all sorts of damage in its seventeen year run. Sneer now complete, Blue’s lips beared more resemblance to a coiled viper than it did to a girl’s mouth._

_If not for the shivering, Blue Sargent would be a truly frightening thing._

_And then—“They’re coming.”_

_Blue knew it was futile, but nevertheless, her eyes swept across the graveyard in an attempt to see the unseeable. The names started coming, and Blue started writing. It was a monotonous, slightly painful task, especially since Blue’s fingers had become completely numb, left completely defenseless against the wind._ Lois Merryweather, Robert Freeman… Elizabeth? No, Elisabeth Sheehan… _So many names, so many deaths to come, and yet, Blue felt nothing. Nothing but cold._

_“Sir, excuse me, young man, I need your name.”_

_Blue sneezed._

_“Excuse me, what is your name?” As the wind grew louder, so did Neeve’s voice._

_Instinctually, Blue’s eyes followed her aunt’s, the urgency in her tone piquing her interest._

_There was someone there. There was someone_ there.

_Blue’s heart did not stop. It rattled. How was this possible? Was he— was she— there was a person. There was a person where before there had been nothing._

Why can I see him?

 _After the initial jolt came the aftershocks as a heart Blue claimed not to possess sunk deeper into the void. Oh._ Oh. _He was so young. He couldn’t be more than eighteen, not with that well-known, well-hated uniform of his. His slacks were pressed and ironed, he walked with the confidence of one who could probably buy his way to heaven. His eyes—  his eyes were inscrutable, as was the rest of his face. He was not quite… there._

_But he was. He was there and he was alive, but he would soon die, he was not a name, he was a boy, and she—_

_“Get. His. Name.” Neeve snapped._

_“Um.” Blue said._

_“Name,” Neeve snapped again, except this time, there was a bite to the end of it._

_“Excuse me…” She began, feeling rather stupid. The boy either hadn’t heard or worse, had pretended not to hear. Blue began to walk towards him with a newfound purpose. She wasn’t exactly sure where it came from. Her voice rose, and her waitress voice clicked into place, a forced, slightly-authoritative charm which leaked unevenly, interspersed with sporadic intervals of irritation. “Hey, Aglionby!” Still nothing._

_She saw now that he was definitely not pretending. He seemed to be in a trance, fading from her very eyes._ Is this how I’ll die? Is this how I’ll look?

_She was right in front of him now. The cloud on his face had cleared somewhat, and his eyes met hers. There were so many emotions throbbing in the span of a couple centimeters. Confusion, regret, anger, sadness, and— submission? relief? He seemed so much older than the sweater that he wore._

_“Tell me you name.” Her voice had quieted. No longer a waitress, no longer a vessel, just Blue, the girl who wished she were a dream. “Please.”_

_“Gansey.” There was a soft certainty to his voice. Even in death, he stood apart. This close, she smelled mint, and rain, and something else entirely, something completely unique to him, to his spirit. She could reach out and touch him except now, he was no longer a boy. He was a grave, and Blue was merely staring out into the precipice, waiting._

_“Gansey…” She whispered. Was it a plea? A question? For all the bodies she had slept with, the intimacy of their voices, their moment eclipsed tonight’s cold, yesterday’s warmth. A thread of timelessness had unravelled. In this moment, there was nothing except_ Gansey _and_ Blue.

_“That’s all there is.” His eyes fluttered close. He fell to his knees. The thread snapped and Blue’s breath caught, crumpling in on itself._

_He was fading fast, now, back to the nothing he once was._

_“Write it down.” Neeve’s voice was clear and solid, the completely opposite of the murky almost-nothings of Gansey’s, yet still, Blue felt Gansey_ right here _while Neeve was still_ over there.

 _Her fingers trembled, but this time it wasn’t from the cold._ Gansey. _Why did Blue feel as if she’d just signed a death warrant?_

 _She looked back towards where he’d fallen. Apart from the outline of a sweater, there was nothing there. “Why could I see him?” Her voice was low and sharp. Neeve had known._ Maura _had known. Did Gansey know? The moment had passed and Blue was left with yet more shards of betrayal. Maybe one day, she’d make a vase out of it and give it to Maura for mother’s day._

_Maura would probably just break it all over again._

_“There are only two reasons why a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve. Either you’re his true love, or you’ve killed him.”_

* * *

 

Blue was good at forgetting. All it took were nights reeking of piss and alcohol, filled with red plastic cups, bodies who cared naught who Blue was nor where she’d been, and the ocean of bitterness which churned and spewed from her fingernails, her eyelashes, her freckles, and of course, her infamous tongue. Forgetting meant a lifetime of indifference, an indifference Blue was all too familiar with. Blue had learned how to forget from the best of the best. Her mother had taught her quite a few things in her seventeen years. This was one of them.

It had only taken one night to forget that _something else_ in the graveyard. Who needed _Gansey_ and _Blue_ when you had Boy and Girl?

But Gansey was here. At Nino’s. It was unmistakably him. The gray slacks ( _would they be the ones he died in?_ ), the unforgettable confidence. The only two things that separated the Gansey he was now and the Gansey she had seen two nights before were the fact that he was very much alive and his eyes, which gleamed of a ferocity which rivalled the curvature of Blue’s own mouth. There was no hint of death. Of submission, of the softness of his soul.

Blue’s head began to rattle again. After a second, her heart decided to join in.

It was going to be a long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm hoping to update this fic as regularly as possible, and seeing how winter break is just around the corner the second chapter should be up by the beginning of January, I hope.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading... It's gonna be a rough ride from here.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://bejoly.tumblr.com/) \+ [twitter](https://twitter.com/angelicaschylr)


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